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Shut up about Barclay Perkins - Southern Mild Ales 1949 - 1954

The next table covers a large area of southern England. Pretty much everywhere in the Southeast, except for London.

If you removed the Ind Coope beers the averages would look very different. A couple of examples from them are unusually strong, one even over 1040º. An exceptionally high gravity for a Mild in the post-war years.

Most of the other examples are either just above or below 1030º. Very high degrees of attenuation, however, leave almost all above 3% ABV. With the exception of London, very high attenuation seems to have been a feature of most Mild Ales after the war.

The very low FGs of these beers are even more significant when you consider that many, if not all, would have been primed with a sugar solution at racking time. Based on the practice at Barclay Perkins, which recording primings in its brewing records, the primings would have raised the gravity by 2-3º. That many of the beers have FG2 below 1005º tells me that there must have been a considerable amount of secondary fermentation in the cask.

The colours are all over the place, ranging from 20.5 (the shade of a pale Bitter) to 120 (very dark brown). Several of the breweries – Fremlin, Ind Coope and Shepherd Neame – all produced both pale and dark versions of Mild. That said, the overwhelming majority of examples are dark.

Southern Mild Ales 1949 - 1954

Year

Brewer

Beer

Price per pint (d)

OG

FG

ABV

App. Atten-uation

colour

1953

Benskins

X

13

1031.5

84

1949

Brickwoods

Mild Ale

13

1033.2

1004.8

3.70

85.54%

20.5

1951

Cobb & Co.

X

12

1028.4

88

1951

Daniells

Mild Ale

14

1029.9

1003.9

3.38

86.96%

110

1951

Flowers

Mild Ale

15

1030.7

1003.9

3.49

87.30%

120

1951

Fremlin

XXL

12

1029.4

22

1951

Fremlin

XX

12

1030.6

60

1950

Gardner

X

12

1030.0

96

1950

Ind Coope

MA

12

1027.9

1008.9

2.46

68.10%

67

1950

Ind Coope

Mild Ale

15

1039.2

1009.6

3.84

75.51%

75

1951

Ind Coope

Ale

12

1029.4

1008

2.77

72.79%

52

1951

Ind Coope

X

13

1030.9

26

1952

Ind Coope

X

13

1036.7

102

1953

Ind Coope

X

14

1033.4

100

1954

Ind Coope

Strong Mild Ale

19

1043.5

1010.7

4.26

75.40%

110

1951

JJ Young

Mild Ale

14

1030.6

1004.8

3.35

84.31%

65

1951

Morrell

Mild Ale

14

1029.7

1003.7

3.38

87.54%

80

1949

Portsmouth United

Mild Ale

13

1029.3

1003.1

3.41

89.42%

19

1951

Portsmouth United

Mild Ale

14

1029.3

1005.1

3.14

82.59%

75

1950

Shepherd Neame

X

1030.1

63

1951

Shepherd Neame

X

12

1031.4

24

1951

Simonds

Mild Dark Sweet

14

1031.5

1005.7

3.35

81.90%

80

1951

Tamplin

Mild Ale

14

1029.9

1005.2

3.21

82.61%

70

1951

Tomson & Wotton

X

12

1029.2

80

1951

Wells

Mild Ale

14

1028.6

1005

3.07

82.52%

75

1951

Wells & Winch

Mild Ale

14

1029.3

1008.6

2.68

70.65%

80

Average

13.4

1031.3

1006.1

3.30

80.88%

70.9

Sources:

Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252.